14 DAY TRIAL // Unity Technologies and Nintendo seem to be looking to offering gamers an extra incentive to get the Nintendo 3DS, as they are currently working on adding Unity support.
"We've had those discussions and we are definitely looking at that. Our priority was to get the Wii U build [of Unity] up and done and ready. Because we need a test environment for it, it's taken a while for Unity to get finalized on Wii U, so that we can actually test against it. So that has been made available now and that is why we've got all of these [game] candidates waiting in the wings that are just going through the submission process at this point," Nintendo of America's licensing department senior manager Damon Baker informed.
Nintendo now offers Wii U developers a free license if they choose to use Unity engine to develop their games. The toolkit affords developers access to the console's hardware and software features, including the platform specific ones such as the GamePad, second screen, camera, microphone and secondary or Wii generation devices.
There's currently a lot of Unity content coming on Nintendo platforms, as Bakers also informed that 17 Wii U games that have been built on Unity have already been submitted and are expected to launch sometime within the next two months, with another fifty or so also on their way.
Nintendo is now in a position to move on to make other platforms compatible with Unity or other middleware providers, Bakers stating that the company and a lot of developers want to take advantage of the Nintendo 3DS' huge install base.
Last year, a Nintendo of America spokesperson said that the company was eager to accommodate indie developers on its platforms and that it was actively moving toward facilitating indie development across all its hardware.
As part of the initiative to boost indie development on Nintendo hardware, the company also plans to add support for the MonoGame open source framework to the Wii U, allowing game creators to develop cross platform games and reuse their code.
Nintendo are not the only ones looking to secure Unity support for their devices, as Sony announced at the start of 2014 that Unity will also have PlayStation Vita support starting with version 4.3, allowing licensed developers to use the engine to create games and then simply deploy them across all the supported platforms.
Game makers making use of Unity 4.3 and up will, of course, be allowed access to the handheld's cameras, dual analog sticks, motion sensors and rear touchpad, along with being granted PlayStation Network integration.